The busiest office in Delhi now is the Election Commission, as it is receiving hundreds of requests daily from both the Central and State Governments for permission to take even routine decisions. The Commission has set up a separate unit to process the requests which are coming in a flood, especially as elections have come at at time when one financial year ends and another financial year begins. Such is the level of caution in government circles is that even minor issues are referred to the Commission.
Such is the fear of the code of conduct that the Defence Ministry asked the Commission whether it can appoint a new Navy chief when election process is going on. The vacancy arose due to the sudden resignation of Navy chief D K Joshi after a series of naval mishaps, and the government asked the Vice-Chief of naval staff to be temporarily in charge.
Observers feel that bureaucrats have become overcautious due to the spate of litigation that has come up in recent years due to interference from courts and statutory bodies. Appointing the chiefs of Defence services cannot have any electoral significance and cannot influence elections. Yet the government was extra cautious.
Very interestingly the Reserve Bank of India, which itself is an autonomous body like the Election Commission, has asked the Commission whether it can issue new bank licences, a process which began more than a year ago. Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has justified that he referred the decision to the Commission as a matter of abundant caution.
Election Commission has stopped the government from increasing natural gas prices from April 1, though the decision was taken months ago. This decision has been criticised by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, even though his Ministry has sent several letters to the Election Commission on releasing payments to states for rural development programmes.
The model code of conduct, while ensuring that there is no misuse of power by governments to offer election sops which will give ruling parties an advantage over their rivals, has been misinterpreted a lot. During the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a zealous official asked the state government to cover the statues of elephants, since elephant was the electoral symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party, then in power. This move was widely ridiculed, and luckily the Commission has refrained from asking that all bicycles, which is the symbol of the ruling Samajwadi Party should be covered or that no hands should be waved since hand is the symbol of the Congress which is fighting elections throughout the country.
Some government departments have removed the portraits of Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Ministers from their websites for the fear of violating the code of conduct. There is a controversy in Gujarat as the State Government has removed the information on the state's achievements. Now Narendra Modi's opponents are saying that his government is too embarrassed over the allegations of poor development and hence has removed the statistics. But State Finance Minister Nitin Patel has said the information was removed due to the model code of conduct.
In 1990, president R Venkataraman had said there was no term as caretaker in the Constitution and that a government can take decisions even when it has lost majority or when there is an election going on. His interpretation was that only decisions which directly influences voters should be avoided. But the model code of conduct is like parable of blind men touching the elephant and guessing what it is.
Tailpiece: Political parties have their experts in dealing with the Election Commission. The BJP's in house expert is senior lawyer Satyapal Jain, who did not get the Chandigarh ticket this time as the party preferred Bollywood actress Kiron Kher.
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